Monday 15 June 2009

I have been to this party, too!

Carpsio, well worth a read again:

If you’re designing for a purpose - make sure you know what that fucking purpose actually is before even you start.


If someone in the team has a great idea, make sure it's useful before you start bollocksing around with it. I've been the guy who has had to pick up the pieces of stupidity like this all too often.

4 comments:

microdave said...

That seems to be the trouble with most technology these days - the poor sod who designs it never really knows what the "customer" actually wants.

I get the impression that it's more case of "we have X amount of processing power & memory, let's see what we can make it do" How many people EVER use more than 10% of the functions on a typical DVD recorder, for instance?

Pogo said...

Thus it has always been. The last and least important person to be given any influence over design is the poor fucker who has to use it.

This problem increases by several orders of magnitude for any public-sector computing.

JuliaM said...

"How many people EVER use more than 10% of the functions on a typical DVD recorder, for instance?"

I use 'start', 'stop', 'pause', 'menu' and 'play subtitles'. The rest of the buttons?

Just there to get in the way...

microdave said...

"I use 'start', 'stop', 'pause', 'menu' and 'play subtitles'. The rest of the buttons?"
I rest my case!

"Just there to get in the way..."
Until the day you accidentally press one of them and then wonder what the ***k has happened! A large proportion of reported "Faults" are usually down to operator error...

I've often thought that what's needed is for an innovative manufacturer to produce a DVD recorder, or other similar product, with only the basic functions enabled. To use the more complex ones (timer recording, editing etc) would need a special code entering. This would allow non techies to do the basics, and still give the more knowledgeable a chance to use the designers creative genius.